Female Osprey Sweden-9275818 "Victoria"

When the Swedish ringer Bill Douhan fastened the ring 9275818 on a young Osprey near Stockholm on 6 July 1999, he did not know that this Osprey would later be renamed after the Swedish Crown Princess. Victoria was captured as a nesting female in Häme, on the Äimälä headland in Pälkäne, on 3 August 2002. She weighed 1840 g, and was fitted with a battery-powered transmitter weighing 30 g (manufactured by North Star).

Autumn migration 2002

For her autumn migration, Victoria obeyed her Swedish roots - or possible the experiences from her first autumn migration - and flew Southwest until she came to the sea. We know that Victoria still dwelled near her nest on 7 September. Her migration probably did not start until the next day, because on 9 September at 02.27, we had a reading from Parainen in SW Finland. After flying 1099 km in 36 hours (714 km/24 h; 29.7 km/h), Victoria spent the night between the 10th and 11th September in northern Germany, near Hamburg. Then she flew on to northern France, to the banks of the river Mosel (12 Sept). After that she spent three weeks (14 Sept - 5 Oct) filling up in Burgundy. The exact readings show that Victoria was fishing at the Loire river, c. 15 km both upstreams and downstreams from the town of Nevers.

Many would probably have assumed that Victoria would fly towards western Africa along the coastline of the continent. They would have been wrong - she kept at a distance of 200-400 km to the coast of the Atlantic all the time. When she had flown across Spain and over the Mediterranean (6-10 October), she followed the Atlas mountain range in Morocco (12-15 October), and then continued straight over western Sahara and Mauritania (17-21 Oct) to the NW corner of Senegal. There Victoria spent two weeks (22 Oct - 5 Nov) fishing in the Senegal river, and not in the sea. After this 'final fill-up', Victoria continued by way of Guinea-Bissau (8-10 Nov) and Guinea (14-18 Nov) to Sierra Leone. The distance to Victoria's final wintering location was 7258 km and took 80 days, all in all.

Victoria's migration can be summarized as follows:

• Pälkäne - Nevers
  • distance 2143 km
  • time 6 days
  • average speed 357 km/24 h
• Filling up at Loire
  • 21 days
• Nevers - Senegal
  • distance 3932 km
  • time 17 days
  • average speed 231 km/24 h
• Filling up at River Senegal
  • 14 days
• Senegal - Sierra Leone
  • distance 1183 km
  • time 22 days
  • average speed 53 km/24 h

Winter 2002-2003

Victoria's transmitter switched to the winter cycle on 10 November, so readings are received every three and a half days (84 hours). Thus, we can only say that Victoria was at her final destination by the Moa river (8.0°N/10.9°W) near the border to Liberia on 26-29 November. After that, the majority of the readings have come from an area of a few square kilometres.

Spring migration 2003

The last reliable reading from Sierra Leone was received on the morning of 29 March. Apparently, Victoria's journey northwards started on 30 March, because she spent the night between the 30th and the 31st in Guinea, only 160 km from her winter location on the Moa river. From Guinea, she continued northwards for two days, through the western bulge of Mali (1 April). The readings from Mauritania (3 April) and northern Mali (5 April) tell us that Victoria has taken an unexpected north-easterly route, i.e. further into Sahara. After that, on 7 April, she turned back North and flew over western Algeria to the East side of the Atlas mountains in Morocco, 662 km due South of Tangiers. The next reading showed that Victoria had flown straight over the Atlas mountain range northwards, and spent the night of the 8th and 9th only 109 km from the Strait of Gibraltar, the shores of which she reached on 9 April around 11 o'clock. Victoria is half-way now, since the distance as the crow flies from Tangiers to her nest was 3532 km, and to her winter location it was 3121 km. The total distance Victoria had flown so far was 3317 km, of which 6% was 'extraneous'.

A reading received in the early morning of 11 April let us know that Victoria had stopped in eastern Spain, almost exactly mid-way between Madrid and Valencia. On 12 April, Victoria was still South of the Pyrenees, 60 km NE of Saragossa, but on the evening of 14 April, she was already in France, 93 km ENE of Bordeaux. From there, she continued in a north-easterly direction. During 18–22 April, Victoria’s readings came from the banks of the East branch of the river Loire, 15-20 km SE of the town of Nevers – from exactly the same area, where Victoria spent three weeks during her autumn migration. Victoria probably continued her journey already on 22 April, because in the evening of the next day she was already on the banks of river Mosel in Germany, 427 km from Nevers. Her following overnight stop was in Schleswig Holstein on 25 April, 567 km from the Mosel valley, and only 15 km from the Danish border.

On the afternoon of 27 April, the satellite showed that Victoria was flying North along the East coast of Sweden. The first reading came at 13.32 from 28 km due West from Oskarshamn. At 16.05, Victoria passed by the town of Västervik, and arrived near Nyköping at 18.27. During five hours, she covered 177 km, i.e. 35 km/24 h. Looking at the map, it would have seemed natural that Victoria would have continued to Åland and then on to Häme. However, Victoria veered East-North-East and flew straight over the Baltic Sea to Estonia. On 29 April, according to the very exact readings, she spent the afternoon (11.12-17.11 o’clock) (apparently fishing) quite close to Tallinn, at the Ylemistenjärvi, which is very rich in fish.

Victoria has returned to Finland! She must have arrived as soon as on 30 April, because at 8.40 on the morning of 1 May, she was at the Rydäsjärvi lake in Hyvinkää, 84 km from her nest. Victoria stayed at Rydäsjärvi at least until three in the afternoon. The first reading on 3 May at 02.04 was received from Äimälä at Pälkäne, where Victoria was sleeping, 400 m from her nest.

Victoria’s spring migration took 33 days, during which time she covered a total of 7,120 km. If she had flown the straightest way from her wintering location to her nest, it would have ben 6,592 km. This means that 528 km (7%) of her return journey was ”superfluous”. Victoria flew an average of 215 km/24 h. If we subtract the days she spent at the Loire, her speed was 254 km/24 h.

Summer 2003

Victoria only stayed a few days at Pälkäne, because by the evening of 6 May, she was already in Hämeenkyrö, 50 km from her nest of 2002, where a goshawk took the nestlings and possibly the male, as well. Hannu Järvinen, a local Osprey ringer, went to check that Victoria was really nesting where the coordinates indicated. Victoria laid two eggs, one of which hatched. When the nestling was half-grown, Victoria was recaptured and the transmitter, with its empty battery, was removed.